We usually treat recognition as something you receive. But what does recognising others do for the person giving it?
The study
Happily.ai looked at the behaviour of 5,114 employees over 180 days (May–November 2025). As a practical measure of trust, it used voluntary peer-feedback requests: when you choose to ask someone for feedback, you're signalling that you trust their judgement.
Givers are trusted more
- People who gave recognition were trusted at 23%, compared with 16% for people who only received it.
- Givers were nine times more likely to be trusted than people who took no part at all (a 2.5% baseline).
- People who both gave and received recognition reached 52%.
In short: generosity beats glory. Being seen to notice and appreciate others builds more trust than being the one who is noticed.
Depth beats breadth
One surprising finding: people who repeatedly recognised the same colleagues were trusted far more (69%) than those who spread recognition thinly across many people (40%). Consistent, specific appreciation within real working relationships seems to matter more than broadcasting thanks widely.
What this means for leaders
- Make giving the habit, not receiving. Encourage everyone — not just managers — to recognise colleagues.
- Be specific about impact. Say what the person did and what difference it made.
- Invest in your core relationships. Regularly recognise the people you work with most closely.
- Pair appreciation with good work. Recognition builds trust fastest when the giver is also doing work worth recognising.
A caution from the researchers themselves: this is observational data, so it shows a strong association, not proof that giving recognition causes trust.
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Adapted from research and writing by the team at Happily.ai, a Rituals of Work partner. Figures come from Happily's own platform data and are observational — they show associations, not proof of cause.
